RCED-88-49: Published: Nov 24, 1987. Publicly Released: Dec 7, 1987.

Additional Materials:

Contact:

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Army's administration of private mineral leases to determine whether the Army: (1) violated federal law by failing to turn over lease administration to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM); (2) monitored mineral leases for compliance with their terms and collected the rents and royalties due the federal government; and (3) distributed to the states their statutory shares of mineral revenues from the leases.

GAO found that the Army: (1) violated no federal law by administering mineral leases, since no laws specified which agency should do so; (2) did not timely comply with a regulation that directed its divisions to transfer mineral leases to BLM; (3) generally followed regulations requiring annual compliance inspections for leases, although the inspections emphasized environmental concerns and not the accuracy of lease payments; and (4) did not fully share lease revenues with states until it corrected its computations.